Synopses & Reviews
From the Wind River Range to the Canadian border, the northern Rocky Mountain West is an outsized land of stunning dimensions and emotive power. In
Visions of the Big Sky, Dan Flores revisits the Northern Rockies artistic tradition to explore its diversity and richness. In his essays about the artists, photographers, and thematic historical imagery of the region, he blends art and cultural history with personal reflection to assess the formation of the regionandrsquo;s character.
The volume features 140 color and black-and-white illustrations, ranging from prehistoric rock art to modernist painting, and from charismatic wildlife scenes to classic landscape. They demonstrate the preponderance of Indians and wilderness in the regionandrsquo;s art and explore the work of individuals as diverse as Edward Sheriff Curtis and Ansel Adams. Focusing on those whose art has defined the region, Flores tells how painters like Maynard Dixon interpreted the Northern Rockies and describes the contributions of women artists Fra Dana, Evelyn Cameron, and Emily Carr. A final essay, andldquo;What Was Charlie Russell Trying to Tell Us?andrdquo; critically examines the legacy of Montanaandrsquo;s cowboy artist.
Conversational in tone and as informative as they are entertaining, these essays provide rich vistas of their own. Visions of the Big Sky does for the regionandrsquo;s art what The Last Best Place did for its literature.
Synopsis
Blends art and cultural history to explore the region's character
Synopsis
From the Wind River Range to the Canadian border, the northern Rocky Mountain West is an outsized land of stunning dimensions and emotive power. In Visions of the Big Sky, Dan Flores revisits the Northern Rockies artistic tradition to explore its diversity and richness. In his essays about the artists, photographers, and thematic historical imagery of the region, he blends art and cultural history with personal reflection to assess the formation of the regionandrsquo;s character.
About the Author
Dan Flores is retired as A. B. Hammond Professor of History at the University of Montana, Missoula. He is the author of numerous books, including Visions of the Big Sky: Painting and Photographing the Northern Rocky Mountain West and The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.
Dan Flores on PowellsBooks.Blog
Coyote stories are the original literary canon of the American experience, extending back 10,000 years into the continental past and producing a sprawling body of hundreds of stories featuring a semi-deity, Coyote Man, as a stand-in for human beings. The purpose of the stories is to hold up for scrutiny what we surely ought to call — if we are, after all, evolutionists — human nature, and Coyote is a true artiste at the task...
Read More»